Food Workers Describe The Most Ridiculous Reason A Customer Tried To Get A Refund

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"When I was in high school, a woman returned almond milk to the store I worked at because she said she couldn't have milk from a cow. She did not believe that almond milk was dairy free because, and I quote, 'It has the word milk in it.'

I spent 10 minutes explaining to her what almond milk was, reading her the ingredient label, and showing her the little writing that said it contained no dairy, but she wasn't buying it."

"I used to work in a patisserie (we specialized in wedding cakes) and this guy ordered a Noah's Ark cake. My boss made these cute little fondant animals going into an ark on the sides of the baby blue cake. The customer came to pick it up and as soon as he looked at the cake, his nose scrunched up and he frowned. He said, 'This cake looks absolutely horrible, I demand a refund!' since he had prepaid.

I called my boss several times, but no answer, and I told him I could hold onto the cake until my boss was free and could call him back personally. He started yelling at me (a minimum wage cashier) and demanding his refund. I told him I wasn't able to because of my position and tried calling my boss again.

He continued yelling, I asked him to calm down or I would have to ask him to leave. He yelled back at me one more time, 'I want my FREAKING refund!' To which I told him, again, I couldn't do. So his response was to open the cake box, remove the cake, and throw it at me. I ducked, it hit the wall, and I told him in no small way that he wouldn't get his refund back and if he didn't leave, I would call the cops.

The next day, he called the patisserie and demanded to talk to my boss. She told him that since he threw the cake at her employee and that he wouldn't just relax and let her call him back, he wouldn't get his cake and was permanently banned from the establishment."

"When I was a manager at coffee shop, we had a crazy lady customer. She would buy two pounds of beans, get us to grind them, and then she'd come back 2-3 weeks later with the mostly empty bags. She would hold up the drive thru line, insisting that we replace the coffee because it had gone bad. The first time we honored the 'just say yes' policy per the store manager, but after that, we had to try to explain to her that coffee doesn't stay fresh after you open it, and we can't replace a bag weeks later after you used most of it. She tried to keep the crazy train rolling by bringing in the nearly empty bags of FREE coffee we'd given her the first time, wanting us to replace them a couple of weeks later. Even worse, she purposefully came through the drive thru and used the excuse that WE were holding up service because we wouldn't honor her request as leverage to get us to give in. She always came in during the morning rush, and it always took at least 10 minutes for a manager to deal with her. I think the store manager eventually asked her to take her business elsewhere.

I almost forgot to mention that she would also purchase a pastry with a 1-3 day shelf life, not eat it, and bring it back with the coffee weeks later, wanting a refund, saying it was inedible. She wasn't some random hobo either. She wore expensive looking clothes and jewelry, and drove a brand new Jaguar."

"I worked in a pizzeria. Well one night, a woman called in an order for a large pizza. The woman shows up about 20 minutes later to pick it up. This woman had to have been about 7 or 8 months pregnant. The pizza had just come out of the oven. It was cut and boxed. The cashier opened the box to show the woman it was her pizza and that it wasn't messed up.

The woman took two of her fingers, stuck it straight down in the middle and pulled them out. Looked the cashier, who also happened to be the manager, straight in the eye and said, 'It's cold. I want a new one.' You could see steam coming off this pizza. It was not cold in anyway. It had just come out of a 550 degree oven. The manager explained that the pizza was not cold, she could see the steam and that it had just come out of the oven. The woman was so mad, she picked up the pizza and threw it into the manager's face.

She then ran full speed out the door. The reason I mentioned that she was 7 or 8 months pregnant was so you could visualize a small pregnant woman run full speed, which was in fact a giant waddle out the door. One of the drivers got the license plate and she was arrested. She gave the manager 2nd degree burns from the scalding hot cheese. Seeing her run is one of the funniest things I've seen and I had to hold back my laughter because the manager was hurt. I picked her up, tossed her over my shoulder, and ran her into the back where we clean the dishes and sprayed her face off with water to get the cheese and sauce off as quick as possible."

"I used to work at KFC and this lady tried to return her food because the box had gotten too soggy and the chicken fell out in her car. We asked her how long ago her purchase was, because none of us working remembered her, and she told us about two and a half weeks ago. We had to refund it because at the time that was the policy."

"When I worked at Target in high school, I was doing the customer service desk and this woman came in and returned 5 of the DiGiorno frozen pizza/giant cookie cakes. They were all thawed and in soggy boxes and she told me the reason is that they didn't cook all the way through.

Now, I've eaten a lot of frozen pizza in my day and I've never seen one that didn't cook all the way through. You may need to adjust times a bit, but I think as an adult she should have been able to figure that out. Also, who buys that many of the same frozen pizza without knowing if they like it or if they haven't had it before?

But its Target, so we return whatever. I marked it for disposal, made a comment to the other person working the desk about what just happened, laughed for a second, and then moved on to the next person. Apparently, that next person went and tracked down frozen pizza lady, told her what I said, and she took offense to it. She called in later to whine to my boss about what I said and I got in trouble. It sucked. So remember kids, people who can't figure out how to cook a frozen pizza are the same people who get offended if you call them not smart enough to cook a frozen pizza."

"I work at a movie theater and a few days out of the week we give out a free bag of popcorn with the purchase of a ticket. A guy comes in one day and purchases a ticket (was only $5), got his free popcorn and goes into the theater. About 15 minutes later, he comes out with an empty bag of popcorn, complaining that it was disgusting and too salty and demanded a refund, on the popcorn, that he already ate, which was free..."

"I had a customer come in with a bag of relatively expensive items from our grocery store, such as vitamins, dog tablets, DVDs, etc. and they were covered in pesticide. And she had claimed we packed it all into the same bags (which is against our policy) and needed a refund on everything.

I felt something fishy was up, told my manager. She quickly checked the surveillance cameras and saw the woman walk in with an empty bag, stuff as much as she could into it, and then pour pesticide all through it. Most of the time if something is crazy, it's probably a scam."

When You're Already Having A Busy Day, An Attitude Like His Doesn't Help

"I was working a shift at Dairy Queen, and it gets really busy at this store. So busy that we have 30+ orders off screen waiting most Sunday evenings. Someone who just ordered 5-10 minutes earlier came up to complain about how it shouldn't take so long for one ice cream cone, even though he was probably about 20th in line. I tried explaining that we're busy and his order was behind a lot of others. He didn't seem to get the concept it's done by first come first serve, not by what's quick/easy to make. He demanded we drop the other orders, make his cone AND give his money back. I tried telling him that I couldn't do that and that he could be refunded, but he would not get the cone. He demanded to speak to the manager, who told him the same thing. Guy was a royal jerk who managed to make her cry somehow, and I felt bad for sticking him on her. Eventually, another customer told him to get out, and that it if he didn't want to wait 10 minutes for a cone, he shouldn't have come to the busiest DQ in the city during its busiest rush."

"I used to work at a Starbucks in a Target, and there was this couple that ran this scam for some significant amount of time before I figured it out. On Thursday evenings, the wife would come in and get a 20 oz iced latte, and ask for a very specific amount of ice cubes (like, seven ice cubes). Okay, whatever weirdo.

Then, Friday morning, a man would come in with a receipt and say that his wife had been in the evening before, asked for an iced latte with light ice, but the one she got was packed with ice. Target doesn't give a darn about five dollars, so he'd always just get the refund. No one really realized anything was up because the same person was never working on both Thursday evenings and Friday mornings to confirm or deny that the wife's order had been filled correctly.

But then I started a new schedule where I closed on Thursdays and opened on Fridays. I'd been closing on Thursdays for awhile, so I'd made this lady's stupid, crappy latte literally dozens of times. So when this guy came in the next morning, I was like, no, dude, I counted the ice cubes, I was there, and there was next to NO ICE in there. He argued with me for a bit, but my Target was actually really good about sticking up for team members so he didn't get a refund AND he got kicked out of the store."

It Was Her Daughter's Fault, But She Thought She Could Make Taco Bell Pay The Price Instead

"I used to work at Taco Bell.

I once had a lady buy a taco salad, hand it to her daughter, and the daughter dropped it, got all over the car.

Now, if she just wanted a replacement, that would be cool, stuff happens. But she demanded a replacement, a refund, and that somebody come out and clean her car for her. She was swearing, calling us all useless, yelling and all that crap.

Luckily, the manager on duty was not one to take people's crap, and it was around 10 pm, so very few cares were being given. She tore this lady a new one, gave her a new salad and told her not to come back, it was pretty great."

A guy came in and ordered one of our burger meals. After we gave him his meal, he came to our counter demanding a refund. He told us it was because there was tomato on his burger that he didn't ask for. He wanted a refund. My manager explained to him that it comes with the burger. He told us that no one told him that. There is literally a picture of the meal on the board with a tomato in it and it says it in the description. We don't get paid to do the obvious for you. If he really didn't want tomato that badly, he could have told us make sure there was no tomato. My manager was nice and asked him if he would just like a new burger (would literally take a minute, no more). He said no because his lunch was ruined. He wanted his money back and said to us, 'Now I have to get lunch somewhere else and waste my whole lunch hour!' Guy, we were literally about to hand you a new burger, it would take longer to go somewhere else. We gave him his money back and that was that."

"I was working at Walgreens and a customer brought back an apple pie with one piece missing. She said she baked the pie according to the instructions on the box and when she took it out of the oven and took a bite, it burnt her mouth. I knew our return policy was pretty good, but I didn't know it was 'return your partially eaten food' good."

The Difference Between Large And Medium IS Hard To Understand Sometimes

"Had a woman come into our restaurant absolutely fuming and demanding a refund. Why? Because she couldn't understand why a large meal cost more than a medium. After 5 minutes of arguing and physically showing her medium and large sized portions, she understood. And then wanted her large refunded and replaced with a medium. Easily the most ridiculous person I've had to encounter. How can any adult not know this? It's surprising how often people will whine about the smallest thing in hopes of free crap. Had a dude order a certain meal, then when he came back he said the order was wrong. It wasn't, but I pretended to give a crap. I offered him a free side of rice and he said, 'That's all you can do for me?' People like that I absolutely cannot stand."

"Back when I was a bartender, I had a girl order a Long Island. Less than 5 minutes later, she came back holding the pint glass at arm's length full of puke and said, 'I puked in my Long Island, can I have another one?'

One time, someone ordered a tea with an absolutely stupid amount of milk. I don't remember exactly how much, but the cup was basically half-filled with milk before I poured the hot water in. She sat down, sipped it once, and then demanded a refund because her tea was lukewarm.

Another time, a woman ordered a meal with fries. When we gave her the meal, she said, 'I'll be right back,' and then went off to the washroom. About ten minutes later, she came back, picks up her meal, and then complained that her fries are cold."

"When I was in high school, I worked at Taco Bell and we had a lawyer who would come in every Wednesday night, order a Nacho Bell Grande, then ask for the manager. He'd then complain that it didn't look like the picture on the menu board, and threaten to sue us if we didn't give it to him for free or make him one with triple meat and cheese to make it look legitimate, but at the same price. And he got it every week, because it was easier to shut him up than to have to explain the situation to the General Manager."

"I worked at a small burger shop in college and a lady demanded a refund for her burgers because the buns kinda-sorta stuck to the wrapper. We got scammed a lot on refunds, so we had a detailed form to track who was getting refunds. She refused to fill it out and stormed off, threatening a tear down on local media."

"Work at Hungry Jack's (Burger King, for you non-Aussies). We don't really do refunds, more so replacements. This one elderly lady came in, ordered 2 cappuccinos, 1 latte and a hot chocolate. The coffee machine isn't fast and the customers are told coffees may take a while to make, upon purchase, because of this. I made the hot chocolate and latte and handed them to her immediately. She went to her table and handed them out and then she sat there, watching me through the glass making the cappuccinos. I called out the order three times. Waited for her (a good 5 mins) until she waited for me to leave and make other orders. Then she called the manager over, said her coffee was cold, and she had the nerve to lie to my manager's face about me not calling it out when the manager knew I did. I was told to make a new one and she did the exact same thing. Luckily the manager was watching, saw what happened, and the customer ended up getting a cold coffee.

Was frustrating considering it put us back about 5 minutes in the drive-thru orders, making more customers mad."

"I own a small snow cone stand and had a lady and her daughter order a large. Once they received it, they ate it in their car and left. Flash forward 4 HOURS later, I get a call from a very angry man.

He demanded a refund for his wife because the snow cone was dry. I explained that his wife and child ate their snow cone right in front of me in, their car, and had they had an issue, they could have simply walked up and asked for more syrup without charge or question. NO, that was not the answer he was looking for and he proceeded to personally insult me and continue to demand a refund for a snow cone that was consumed 4 hours prior. Eventually he hung up after a few more insults and me calmly explaining that I could not refund their $3 for something that was eaten 4 hours ago.

Well, he called back three more times to speak to the manager, then the owner. He wasn't very happy when I said I'm both and the insults and abuse continued to be hurled my way, each time met with an apology and calm and professional response. So guess who got a very slanderous review on one of those Pinterest mom websites!"

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